Tag Archives for oscars

YAY Oscars! Last night’s Academy Awards ceremony did not disappoint- political commentary mixed with some humor, beautiful dresses (and people), some maaajor drama, and even some science! Pretty sure there was more mention of science during the Oscar’s than there has been during any of Trumps speeches ever (someone fact check me on that). Here are the highlights:

Hidden Figures nominated for several Oscars: While it didn’t take home any awards, Hidden Figures was nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), and Best Writing Adapted Screenplay.This film is the story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space program. This is a major shoutout to both women and minorities in science, and it’s always great when a science film makes it to the awards show. Not to mention, our favorite scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson was live tweeting about the film throughout the Oscars.

The film @HiddenFigures reminds us: Even with America’s problems, in the 1960s we all knew the importance of Science & Math.

GE wins “Best Commercial” with it’s ad geared towards hiring more women scientists: YAAAS. This was one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen. Huge kudos to GE for dedicating efforts to hiring more women in STEM and advertising this initiative in a well-done commercial. It’s beautiful.

Shoutout to Science and Tech awards: While they unfortunately have their own separate event, it’s nice that the Oscars took the time to highlight some of the innovation made from the science and technology sectors and their contribution to film making. Some of these awards went to facial-performance-capture technology, animation technology, and improvements in digital camera systems.

For the first time this year, the Oscars provided a “ticker” that scrolled through all the thank you’s for Oscar winners, allowing them to use their time on stage to discuss something in addition to who they’d like to thank. Lot’s of important, powerful messages were delivered, and here at CauseScience we are very excited that Climate Change happened to be a central theme several times!

And lastly, I just want to say this, making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world — the world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production had to move to the southernmost tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.

We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous peoples of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.

I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted; I do not take this night for granted.

In addition to Leo, Mad Max took home about a bazillion Oscars, and several of the Oscar winners also took the time to address climate change in their acceptance speeches. For example, costume designer Jenny Beavan said this in her acceptance speech:

“I just want to say one quite serious thing, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but actually it could be horribly prophetic, Mad Max, if we’re not kinder to each other, and if we don’t stop polluting our atmosphere, so you know, it could happen,”

Glad to see Oscar winners using their time in the spotlight to highlight the threat of climate change and to urge everyone to do something about it!

In case you didn’t watch the Academy Awards last night – spoiler alert – Leonardo DiCaprio finally won Best Actor for The Revenant! Whether that matters to you or not, Leo continued his vocal stance on climate change and mentioned it in-depth in his acceptance speech!! He also posted about climate change on his Facebook wall, and included MomentForAction.org (below). Check out previous CauseScience posts on Leo killing it in a speech at the UN Climate Summit, and being named UN Messenger of Peace on Climate Change! Leo is definitely the biggest celebrity that continually vocalizes concern for climate change and repeatedly demands action!! Maybe this all started when he realized that Titanic could only happen in a world with icebergs 😉 (FANGIRLING!)